Page 28 of Shadow & Stars
The room rocked, as if it were teetering on the edge of a cliff. I lost my balance, tumbling face-first into a sofa.
“Fuck!” I yelled, leaping back onto my feet.
Xavier had the door open, Darcy on his back. I followed them up the stairs, my guts a cluster of uneasy worms. The quaking came from something much bigger than some demonic twin. I kept my fingers crossed we didn’t meet it. As much as I enjoyeda scrap, right now I didn’t want to be running the risk of wishing for a victory.
Don’t think about it…
Butterfly trailed me, Margarite taking up the rear. Xavier opened the hatch into the park, leading us to the dead tree. He paused, checking the route with his senses. After giving the all clear, up we went, taking a spiral staircase two steps at a time until we reached a nighttime desert.
Whoa.
A rolling sea of sand bathed in the light of a full moon spread out before us, glittering with that poxy dust falling from the inky black sky. Blue stars shone as brightly as the moon, the air bitter. I shivered, rubbing my arms to generate warmth.
“Level 87,” Xavier said. “We’ll keep going north.” He charged down the high dune we’d arrived on, sliding through the grains as if he were on a ski slope.
“Onward we march,” Butterfly said, following my lover.
Yeah. Great. And shouldn’t that be onward we slide?
Man, this place was huge, nothing but sand as far as my eyes could see. No oasis, no hint of an exit. Still, at least it wasn’t a daytime desert. Dealing with mega heat would definitely not be fun.
Navigating the sand, the quaking not rocking this place, I shrank my thoughts into a pinpoint focus. Kept my mind on the goal of getting to safety. Well, for like five minutes until I began mulling over Butterfly’s conclusions, tossing the wishing option into the fire.
It missed, landing on the edges of the flames. A strong possibility, the easy way out.
Tempting…
Stop thinking!
I took my own advice, giving my mind another clear out and just concentrated on dashing up and down the sand dunes, everyinch of me sweaty despite the chill. I fell into the simplicity of it, an empty machine getting from A to B.
Cool. I liked this state of mind.
Thunder rumbled above, a bolt of lighting forking across the night. There were no clouds, no indication of an impending storm. I sniffed the air for the metallic hint of rain. Got nothing, only my own stink.
What the hell?
The sky to the west flickered as if someone threw a stone at a TV screen, a rainbow of pixelated damage slowly snuffing out the stars. I skidded to a halt, staring up at it in confusion.
The thunder sounded once again, those pixels forming all the way down to the horizon line. The sky flickered like it was struggling to maintain itself.
“We have to keep going,” Xavier said.
I carried on under the changing sky, a storm raging somewhere up there. The lightning illuminated the desert in bright violet bursts, the thunder growing louder with each subsequent crash.
Oh, God. What now? And where the hell was the exit?
I stayed close to Xavier, pouring energy into my legs. In my line of work, fitness was key, along with decent lung capacity.
For a brief moment, I missed those simpler days of being an assassin and a spy. No complications, my life streamlined to meet the needs of my queen. An empty life of death and servitude. But I also hated its emptiness, its rules, how life rolled past me in vibrant colors while I languished in the gray.
I shook off my whining, tearing up another sand dune. None of that mattered now. Our survival did, along with the end of this madness.
Pixels smothered the sky, turning it into one big, damaged TV screen. The storm thundered on. A droplet of rain landed on my cheek. At least, it felt like rain.
“We’re halfway there,” Xavier said. “Does anyone need to pause?”
A unanimous no answered him.
